When I was in eighth grade, the University of Wisconsin played Southern California in the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl game. I don’t remember which team won, but that was when I decided that, when I went to college, I was going to attend UW in Madison so I could go to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Hahahahaha! UW had its worst football teams ever while I was in college. The University of Iowa was the bottom-ranked Big 10 team, and UW lost to them with a score of 51-0. We cheered for first downs as if they were touchdowns because first downs were about as good as the team got, and they didn’t happen that often. Even without a Rose Bowl holiday, UW was a good choice for me. Football weekends were great and I never had enough money to go to Pasadena anyway.

I paid for college with scholarships and grants–a good deal because I didn’t have big student loans to repay. Ted’s college education was covered by the GI Bill, so he didn’t have big college loans either. I needed to work 10-15 hours/week during the school year and full time in the summers to avoid loans, so I did. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I worked two jobs–40-hours/week at the university library and 20 hours/week as a Kroger checker.

During the school year, I qualified for work/study jobs, which were partially funded by the federal government and paid more than minimum wage. Minimum wage was $1.25/hour; work/study paid $1.50/hour–20 percent more. Unless you were a boy, that is; then the pay was even better. My first work/study job was in a campus administration office as a “typist.” This job was very educational because it introduced me to unfair salary practices for men and women. Example: There were also three or four male students working in that office, but they were “draftsmen.” I did a little typing, but I never saw any of the men drafting. The reality was that we all stuffed envelopes for mailers regarding meetings and conferences on campus. I stuffed much faster than the men (I can show you the trick of rapid stuffing because I still do it with our Christmas cards), but the men made $2.25/hour–80 percent above minimum wage. Is it any wonder that the next episode in an historic series of women’s rights movements was ramping up during my college years?

In the spring semester of my freshman year, I was invited by the UW history department to be one of twenty students attending a six-week seminar at Smith College (one of the elite Seven Sisters schools) in Northampton, MA with all expenses paid. I have no idea how I was selected because I hadn’t even taken a history course, but it was a fun summer. I needed a job for the other six weeks, so the Financial Aid office found a work/study opening at the Old Wade House in Greenbush, WI, not far from my parents’ home. The job allowed me to work before and after the six weeks at Smith. That was a sweet deal!

The Old Wade House was essentially a hotel/restaurant in the days of traveling by horse. It was located halfway between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac–the distance a horse could travel in a day. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places. I was a tour guide and have tales to tell about the visitors. During slow times, another work/study student and I had time to goof off. One day we took pictures of each other, just for the fun of it. Here I am in my tour guide dress. It won’t surprise you to know that my mom made this dress and another one for me to alternate on my work days. It’s hard to see, but I’m touching the hand of a male mannequin as if I’m flirting with him.

Colleen, my best friend, attended Cardinal Ritter College in Milwaukee, but didn’t like it because it was an all-girls school. During her junior year, she convinced her parents to let her transfer to UW Madison. Her dorm was near mine and we frequently spent time together. Our favorite times were when her mom would make a batch of turtles (big ones with four pecan “legs” and a pecan “head.” When one of those boxes would arrive, Colleen would call me and say, “I’ve got turtles. Want to come over?” You bet! In this photo, we were on a double date going to a fraternity theme party. That’s not my dress, sweater, or scarf. I think the sweater was Susan’s (a dorm mate), but I don’t remember the rest. It looks like we were having a good time.

You do crazy things in college and spend the rest of your life saying, “It was college, for heaven’s sake!” Why would we decide to smear our faces with toothpaste, wear our shower caps as if they were high fashion fascinator hats, put on dress heels and flats with our bathrobes, and get someone to take our picture? Crazy, but fun. That’s me on the left, then Eileen, Becky, and Susan.

I loved my college years, but my senior year was the most fun of all. I shared a house in the summer with three former dorm mates. In the fall, we moved to a bigger house and added another dorm mate plus a friend of Eileen’s. The six of us had a ball and we still keep in touch and get together. Here we are at Christmas. Barb isn’t in the picture because she got married on December 21. We all kidded her about it being the longest night of the year. It looks like we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but I remember we had a ball decorating it. Left to right, it’s Leila, Carol, Eileen and Lin. I took the picture.

The late 1960s were a politically active time on American college campuses. UC Berkeley and UW Madison were among the most active, with regular protests against the Vietnam War, including protests against Dow Chemical Company, which produced agent orange, a carcinogenic defoliant used in the jungles of Vietnam. In February 1969, there was a campus protest against Dow, and I guess it was expected to be unusually violent (by 1960s standards, not by today’s protest standards). I didn’t want to go to jail or get beat up, so I didn’t participate in protests. I attended my early morning class and was shocked when I left the classroom and saw National Guard troops with rifles standing in every hallway. I’d never been that close to a soldier with his gun ready to use and I was frightened.

On the way to my next class, this is what I saw–more armed National Guardsmen standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the southern boundary of the campus. After class, I headed home for lunch. I had to cross University Avenue to get home to the house I shared with the other five women. By that time, the four-lane street had been closed to traffic and there wasn’t a car in sight. The guardsmen were more scattered, standing farther apart. With no traffic, I assumed the guardsman at the corner would be happy to see a non-threatening person (me) leaving the campus and carrying nothing but books. Wrong! As I stepped off the curb, the guardsman stepped directly in front of me, raised his rifle with a bayonet attached to it, and pointed it at me only a few feet from my chest. “Get back on the sidewalk!” he shouted. “I’m only going home for lunch,” I squeaked. He looked both ways (no cars in sight) and said, “Then wait for the light.” So I stood there on the sidewalk and he stood there at the curb with his bayonet pointed at me until the “Walk” light came on. Then I legally crossed the empty, deserted street and went home for lunch. I think I skipped my afternoon classes, or maybe I didn’t have any that day.

Time moved on, things calmed down, and June 10, graduation day arrived. My parents and brothers and my Grandpa L. came to watch me graduate, and so did Ted, who was working at the Weather Service Forecast Office (WSFO) in Washington, D.C. at the time. Here are three of my four brothers at my graduation–Denny, Russ, and Steve.

There were thousands of graduates and it was quite an efficient, if meaningless, operation. We were called by schools, so I walked with the School of Education students. You knew it was your turn when you heard “School of Education” on the loudspeaker. No individual names were called, and that was a good thing with so many graduates. The line never stopped moving. We walked toward the stage in a random group, received a quick handshake from everyone along the way (don’t stop or pause as you pass), and returned to our seats carrying an empty red faux leather folder for the diplomas that were mailed to us later. The picture of the graduation ceremony (below) was taken by my mom. Graduates (in black) are seated in the lower rows of the stands. I have no idea where I am in the crowd and maybe Mom didn’t either. I assume she timed the shot to at least show the School of Education graduates with our light blue tassels.

Graduation was held in Camp Randall, the UW football stadium. You can see the field and some of the stands on the other side in the picture below. As I mentioned earlier, football weekends were fun times. Students could buy season tickets for a pretty low price, and it seemed like everyone turned out for the games. I don’t think it was about winning or losing; it was about going somewhere that was a lot of fun and only incidentally watching UW lose the game. Seniors and grad students got the best tickets, so when I went to a game with Ted in my senior year, we sat near the front of the stands on the 40-yard line. As a freshman, I was at least two-thirds of the way up on the bottom level and probably on the far side of the 30-yard line. I remember having to look away to the left to see the cheerleaders. Camp Randall seated 70,000 people and was sold out for every home game. In contrast, Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers play, only seated and sold out 55,000 seats at that time. Yes, football weekends were great!

Grandpa wanted a picture with me in my graduation regalia. Our six-woman fun house porch and steps are on the right. Can you believe Grandpa and my dad wore suits to a June graduation where they had to sit in the sun on bleachers?! So did the other adult men in the pictures above. Dress codes for graduation ceremonies have certainly changed over the years.

Four days after my college graduation, Ted and I were married and headed for Washington, D.C. where we were going to live. This is our first Christmas tree. It looks normal, although a little wide, but it was so full and so crooked that we couldn’t get it to stand up in any way that resembled straight. We settled for hiding a kitchen chair in the corner behind the tree, weighting the chair with lots of Ted’s Encyclopedia Britanica volumes, and tying the tree to the back of the chair. You can’t see the chair through that thick Christmas tree, but you can see my sewing machine cabinet on the right. I bought it used during my freshman year in college and I still use it. The picture on the wall was my first gift from Ted. It’s a watercolor of Lombard Street that he bought while he was in San Francisco the summer we met.

Ted and I learned our lesson. When we moved to a larger (two-bedroom) apartment, we bought an artificial tree for our third Christmas. It stood nice and straight. By this time, we had accumulated some furniture. Pole lamps were in style, so we had one of those. The picture on the wall is one that Ted bought when he was on R&R in Japan during his Army service in Korea. We bought the black and white TV to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. When we bought it, I said to the salesman, “Doesn’t it even come with a stand?” He went into a back room, came out with a stand, and gave it to us for nothing. The drapes cover an entire wall where we had sliding doors to a balcony. I made the drapes on my sewing machine, sitting at the sewing cabinet in the previous picture.

This was the time of data punch cards and everyone with access to discarded cards was making Christmas wreaths out of them. I worked at the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau was tabulating the decennial census by computer for the first time ever. Did I have access to used punch cards? More than you can imagine. Here’s my punch card wreath, sprayed with silver paint, decorated with sparkles, and highlighted with a sprig of artificial greenery in the center. Very vogue in the early ’70s.

When we got married, Ted was driving a 10-year-old Pontiac Bonneville tank he bought when he was discharged from the Army. The heater didn’t work, so we had to cover our legs with a blanket in the winter. In Spring 1971, we bought an Opel Sport Coupe with the big engine–2.2 liters. The small model had only a 2.0 liter engine. That extra 0.2 liters made a difference, right? The car cost $2,200 and it was awesome! In all the time we had it, it only needed one major repair. The head gasket blew off when the car was 14 years old and it was a $400 repair. We debated whether or not the car was worth the money, but since it hadn’t cost us more than regular maintenance (oil, filters, tires, etc.) for 14 years, we fixed it and drove it for three more years. By that time, the brakes were failing and the clutch was so worn out, you had to start the car in second gear. Ted and I could manage that, but Jeff was 16 by then and he was learning to drive. We didn’t think it was a safe car for a 16-year-old to use, so we replaced it with a used Nissan Stanza. We never saw many Opels in the U.S. but we lost count of how many we saw in Germany when we were there.

A little over a year later, it was time to buy a car seat for the Opel. I was pregnant with Jeff and wanted a rocking chair to rock the baby. We bought this chair at “the world’s most unusual lumberyard” where they sold more than raw lumber. It was unfinished, so I stained and varnished it The stain and varnish cans are sitting on the floor. On the right, you can see the bookcase that held the encyclopedias we used to hold our first Christmas tree upright. When the varnish on the chair was dry and the chair was ready to use, I made a seat cushion and a back cushion for it (with my sewing machine at the sewing cabinet, of course). I rocked all four kids in this chair and it’s still in excellent condition in our upstairs library.

I think that’s all the photo history I have of myself–elementary school, high school, college, and marrying Ted. The next phase of Ted’s and my lives is raising our children. Good times, all the time.

I’ve had three photo albums sitting on my desk for months, waiting for me to go through them to scan some more photos. The first album has photos of me from my parents’ albums. The second album includes photos I took when I got my first camera–a hand-me-down Kodak Brownie Reflex from my mom when she bought a new camera for herself. The third album has Kodak Instamatic 110 mm pictures beginning with my college years and ending when Ted and I were first married–four days after my college graduation.

Let’s start at the beginning. Like David Copperfield, I am born. Here I am at one month old. What a cute baby!

Ted and I obviously had similar interests in our first year of life, even though we didn’t meet until 20+ years later. Bringing the baby’s high chair outside for the picnic must have been the thing to do in those days. Ted is on the left; I’m on the right, several years later. The difference: my family actually gave me food!

Here’s how I took a bath when I was a baby. I remember the “bath table” from when my younger brothers used it. When the cover was down, it was a changing table. See all the diapers below the basket? It also has handy pockets on the front for diaper pins, baby’s hair brush, etc. With the top up, Mom could put water in the basket, bathe the baby, then open a plug and drain the water through an attached hose. It seems more complicated than bathing the baby in the kitchen sink, but nobody asked me for a better idea at the time.

I remember people telling me I was “Daddy’s girl,” but I never really thought I got special treatment for being the girl. Maybe my four younger brothers would disagree. I don’t know–I’ve never asked them. I always thought I had it tough because I was the oldest and my younger siblings seemed to get away with a lot of things I didn’t as my parents eased up on some of the rules.

When my oldest brother, Denny, was born, I stayed at Grandma’s house while Mom was in the hospital. Mom’s younger sisters, Shirley and Ruth, still lived at home. They played with me and hung a swing for me from Grandma’s washline posts. Here I’m on the phone, talking to Mom about my new baby brother. Grandma lived in the city and already had a telephone with a dial. It was several more years before we got a telephone with a crank out in the country.

My mom–like everyone else–had a wringer washing machine when I was little. I used to “catch” the clothes as she ran them through the wringer. On my third birthday, I reached too close and my left hand got caught in the wringer. You can see the merchurochrome on my hand. That was the year I got a tricycle for my birthday.

From the time I started first grade, I’ve always loved school. I learned not to flaunt my love of learning when, during the summer before second grade, I mentioned to my friends that I couldn’t wait for school to start again. They were aghast! None of them liked school and they made fun of me for saying I did. I think I was about eight years old when I first heard someone talking about getting a doctoral degree. “Wow!” I thought. “You can keep going to school that long?” That’s when I decided I’d like a doctorate. Receiving my doctorate and being hooded by Dr. Henschke was a high point in my life. My love for school might have started when I was at least four years old. Here I am at my Aunt Ruth’s high school graduation and already practicing for my own graduation day(s).

I think I was four when this picture was taken. I’m sitting with my two grandpas.

When I was five years old, I was the flower girl in my Aunt Shirley’s wedding. My Aunt Ruth was the maid of honor. Here we are before leaving for the church. I still wonder why Aunt Shirley picked lavender for Aunt Ruth’s dress and light green for mine. Really?? Purple and green??

My elementary school had about 50 students in eight grades. Ted’s was smaller, with about 20 students–6 of whom were his siblings and cousins. Ted’s was a true one-room schoolhouse, so I tease him that I went to school in town (population: 200) where we had two–and later, three–classrooms. On your birthday, it was the general rule to invite all the girls in your classroom (i.e., half the girls in the school) to your party. I was in 5th grade here, so these are the girls from the fifth through eighth grade room. Only Colleen (dark hair, lower left corner) and Mary Beth (behind Colleen on the left side, back row) didn’t go to my school. They went to parochial schools. Colleen’s mother and my mother grew up together and were best friends, then were pregnant with Colleen and me at the same time. Colleen and I have always said we were friends before we were born. Mary Beth was in my Sunday School class.

I’m in the center front row beside Loita, a Mexican girl whose family were migrant workers. Loita taught me my first Spanish sentence: Mi casa es blanca–My house is white. Her older brother, Onesimo, was 16 years old and in the eighth grade. I don’t know what happened to Loita, but Onesimo became a Wisconson Supreme Court judge.

As I look at this picture, I could probably tell a story about every one of the girls, but I won’t.

It’s summer and I’m going on a picnic with the other three girls in my fifth grade class. I’m on the left and then it’s Ruth, Judy, and Lynn. Fashions have certainly changed! Those halter tops are a thing of the past, and that’s probably a good thing. Look at our footwear! Not flip-flops or sandals, but leather buckle shoes or Keds with socks. We didn’t have a city park in my little town, so “going on a picnic” meant taking our bikes and riding to some farmer’s field, spreading a blanket on the ground, and eating our lunch. Look for cow-pies before spreading the blanket! It looks like it was my turn to bring the blanket.

Kids were eligible to join 4-H when they were ten years old, so I did, and so did all my ten-year-old friends. We had a boys’ 4-H club (the Handy Helpers) and a girls’ club (the Wide Awakes). I was named the Outstanding 10-Year-Old Girl in the county that year, based on the activities I described in my 4-H Record Book, which I still have. That’s the Outstanding 10-Year-Old Boy beside me and the two older honorees are the Key Award winners. You had to be 15 to be eligible for the Key Award. This picture was printed in the local newspaper.

This was the time when poodle skirts were in style. A poodle skirt was made of a full circle of felt fabric with a poodle appliqué on it. If you spun around, your skirt would flare straight out. A hem would have turned downward, so felt had to be used because it’s a pressed fabric and doesn’t ravel. My mom was an expert and superior seamstress. When I was growing up, you could sew a very nice garment for about one-third the cost of purchasing it, so a lot of women in our town brought patterns and fabric to my mom and she sewed clothing for them. She also sewed one-of-a-kind garments that a friend of hers marketed to a high-end clothing boutique in Chicago. Anyway, Mom made my “poodle” skirt. Unfortunately, I think the pattern included a design for a horse appliqué instead of a poodle, but I never minded. It was the concept that counted: full-circle, felt, and appliqué.

Here I am on my tenth birthday. I loved the skirt I’m wearing. It was a full skirt and made out of taffeta, so it swished when I walked. Awesome! Hey, kids, do you recognize the cake? Yes, that’s the well-known Vienna Torte my mom always made for my birthday and for my brother Tom’s birthday because we both liked it so much. I’ll be making it again for my birthday this year–as always. Check out the kitchen décor–curtains, stand mixmaster, woodcut trim above the sink and–ta-da!–one of the two automatic dishwashers in our town (the white appliance behind me with a flat top that lifted to load the dishes). The wooden kitchen chairs pre-date the faux-marble Formica top tables with chrome trim and legs, complete with matching chrome and vinyl chairs. We had one of those kitchen sets later on.

My mom was the oldest and my Aunt Shirley and Aunt Ruth were the youngest of six siblings. That made my aunts old enough to go to proms and formals when I was young/old enough to play “dress-up” with their used party dresses. It was one of the things my friend Nina and I liked to do. After we were all dressed up, we would walk a block to the local grocery store and buy some candy for a penny or a popsicle for a nickel. We just knew everyone who saw us would admire our fancy dresses. You can do that kind of thing in a small town.

In fifth grade, we must have studied American history because we had to dress as our favorite historic character. I remember Kathy had to do the same thing when she studied Missouri history. Kathy dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder. Do you recognize my character? That would be Sacajawea. I think one of my brothers had the bow and arrow set. My “dress” was made out of a burlap potato sack (washed, of course) and decorated with painted macaroni and spaghetti noodles. I doubt that Sacajawea was blonde or ever wore burlap and noodles, but it made sense at the time. I still remember how scratchy it was.

Like me, my mom was usually the one who took the pictures, so I don’t have many of the two of us together, but here’s one. Naturally, we’re both wearing dresses that Mom sewed.

Remember how I said I went to a small school? Here’s a school picture of the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders when I was in sixth grade. I just showed this picture to Ted and said, “Can you believe this is three grades of kids?” He scoffed and told me that, when he was in sixth grade, his school had only seven kids in those three grades. Yes, Ted, but I went to the big school in town.

Here I am in my eighth grade confirmation dress and heels, holding my new hymnal–the traditional confirmation gift. My dress is my favorite shade of blue–made by Mom. Confirmation was always on Palm Sunday in those days. This might have been examination day, the week before confirmation. On examination day, members of the confirmation class had to answer random questions from the pastor about what we learned in catechism classes about the Bible and church doctrine while the rest of the congregation watched and listened. It felt like high stress, but I don’t remember anyone ever flunking examination Sunday and being turned down for church membership. Transitioning from eighth grade to high school used to mark the age when a girl changed from bobby socks to stockings (cf Frankie Avalon) and from flats to high heels. I remember when Kathy modeled her confirmation dress and heels, Thom (nine years old at the time) said in awe, “Kathy looks like a lady!” That age is certainly when you begin to move from childhood to adulthood.

This is surely confirmation Sunday, because I’m in a white robe and I have a pink carnation corsage. We’ve got all the obligatory poses. First, with my parents, . . .

. . . and then with my grandparents. That’s G & G S. on the left and G & G L. on the right.

Last, but not least, we have me with my sponsors (godparents), Aunt Jerry and Uncle Gibby.

After confirmation, the next big highlight is eighth grade graduation. Here’s my seven-member eighth grade class, the largest class to graduate from my school at that time. Our official photographers were our mothers. The teacher was Mrs. Genzmer. In all of my school career–elementary school, high school, bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate–I have been fortunate to study with four teachers who could easily be named the National Educator of the Year every year. They exemplified what it means to be a teacher, and they were: Mrs. Genzmer (elementary school); Mr. Meyers (high school physics and advanced math); Dr. Zeni (masters program, English); and Dr. Henschke (doctoral program, adult education).

The last photo from these two albums shows me in my junior-senior prom dress just before my high school graduation. Naturally, Mom sewed my dress. I went to the prom with David, my steady boyfriend at the time. We thought we’d get married, but we broke up at the end of the summer. Ahh, young love.

Next time: The College Years